


Heart of a Tiger (Life after Life Starts)

by I_Write_Midnight_Snacks



Series: Soul of a Champion [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - No Ice Skating, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bullying, Camp Nanowrimo, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Growing Up, Hurt/Comfort, It evolves from there, Light Angst, M/M, Not giving any spoilers though, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Self-Discovery, Slow Burn, Starts as, Themes of Taking a Chance, Yuri Plisetski is an orphan, more like ficlets following a common plot than a proper long fic, non-typical format, other characters may be added later, so for now
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-05-31 22:48:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15129419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_Write_Midnight_Snacks/pseuds/I_Write_Midnight_Snacks
Summary: When you find yourself completely off track, sometimes you'll find that the road opens wide in front of you and life is ready to truly begin, if only you're prepared to let it.After the chance encounter, that really didn't change all that much, somehow changed everything for Otabek and Yuri, they find themselves on a road to self-discovery that could lead them anywhere. Thankfully, they aren't alone on the journey.





	1. Moving In

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my camo NaNoWriMo project for this month.
> 
> I had plans for this sequel for a long time, but now the announcement for the new YOI movie happened to coincide with the camp, I figured if this isn't my chance, then what is? So, here it is. The sequel for my and OfCloudlessClimes' reverse bang project, that a few people may have asked for before.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy it!

_Summers at the orphanage were rarely as hot as it got that week._

_“Hey, look what I found!”_

_The voices of the other kids, laughing and shrieking and screaming at each other as they ran around a playground - Yuri had learned to filter them out a long time before._

_“Ew, what’s that? It looks so girly!”_

_“Hey!”_

_“Ow! Don’t hit me!”_

_He swinged his feet back and forth to give the swing more momentum. Going higher and higher with every swing, Yuri nearly laughed with exhilaration._

_“It’s not **mine**!”_

_He reached nearly as high as he wished he could, picturing himself somewhere so far away from this place that the other kids couldn’t even imagine it! The heat was far away and the other kids were long gone and Yuri had everything he’d wished for._

_“It’s Yuri’s!”_

_So deep in his thoughts of ‘somewhere else’ that he never even heard the words until the shrieking got too loud to ignore._

_“Ew, that’s so lame! Is that a dress?”_

_“Dunno! It was in his closet! It’s so weird!”_

_“Hey, give that back!” Yuri shouted, nearly falling off the swing._

_“Why? Aren’t dresses for **Girls**?”_

_“It’s not a dress!” he yelled -Yuri did not shriek, thank you very much-, reaching for the blue garment._

_“It’s totally a dress!” Andrej stuck his tongue out, throwing the dress to another boy. “Why do you even have that?”_

_“It’s not a dress! Give it back!”_

_“You shouldn’t wear dresses, you know!” the garment was thrown to Felix next, and Yuri growled as he turned after it._

_“Do you want to be a **girl**? That’s so weird! Oh, oops! Look, it’s ruined now!” Felix grinned as he ripped at the soft cloth._

_“No! No, give it back!”_

_“Why do you even have this?” he threw it back at Misha, who grinned viciously._

_“Oh, sorry!” he tore at the cloth, looking Yuri in the eye as Andrej grabbed him from behind. “Looks like you can’t wear it now!” he said as he dropped the cloth on the ground, stepping on it. “Oops! I’m so sorry, it’s definitely ruined now!”_

_“No,” Yuri struggled against Andrej. “Give it back, give it back!” He shrieked, punching the boy in the face and jumping at Misha with his nails. “You ruined it! Give it back!” he yelled. He punched and scratched and cried until the other two boys grabbed at him and he was pushed to the ground, falling on top of his ruined costume._

_The sun bore against the back of his neck, hot and vicious as the other boys laughed at him, and he grabbed at the garment, looked it over for the tears and mud and any way to save it._

_He had saved money for a year before to buy himself a dancing costume._

***

Moving into Otabek’s flat had felt surreal.

When he was leaving the orphanage for the last time, he had smiled in cruel satisfaction at the other boys; Boys who had been there for as long as him, and who knew that kids their age never got adopted. He had looked them in the eyes, a vicious delight shining in his own as they watched him taking away the few boxes of possessions he owned to move them into Yuuri and Viktor’s car. 

No goodbyes were exchanged, and before long, we was leaving the orphanage behind forever.

***

Once he’d reached his new home, Yuuri and Viktor had left him on his own for a couple of hours to settle himself in.

One of his boxes held his clothes.

One hour later, he’d managed to bring himself to open it and finally stash away his clothes in the closet that was only his. It took minutes to put them in place, and it was only then that it finally hit him. He took one step back, then another, and sat himself on the bed -that was only his-, and finally, he could breathe.

He was free.

***

One hour later, Otabek had found him still sitting on the bed, lost in thoughts. Yuri said nothing, puting the remaining boxes away by the farthest wall before walking out. He shook his head, and Otabek nodded, understanding. No words were exchanged that night as they heated up the takeout leftover Otabek had from the previous night, and put in a dumb movie to watch in silence.

***

Two weeks later, he started going to school again.

Nothing had changed there, really. People still mostly ignored him, and even his teachers barely acknowledged his sudden presence. This time around, though, it was somehow easier to face everything.

When he got home, Otabek was there, with dinner on the table and a soft smile on his face. It was the smile that, Yuri had realised at one point, Otabek didn’t show to anyone other than him and sometimes Viktor and Yuuri.

And after having dinner and watching movies together, he managed to get up and go to school again the next morning. And then the next day, and the day after.

And one week, and then two weeks later, people still ignored him, and teachers still didn’t acknowledge him, so he made noise, and he answered questions, and when they tried to ignore him, he made sure that they were going to hear him, just because he could.

***

One month later, he finally opened the second box.

This one held books and CDs. Recording of different shows that he had caught whenever he had managed to as a kid, that he had scrapped up whatever money he had gotten his hands on to afford.

There weren’t many of them, but they were well loved, and even today he remembered them by heart, despite having given up on them years before.

As he picked them out of the box to place them on a shelf, he felt himself respond to the memories, his muscles remembering the movements he had spent hours on all that time ago even though he had put it all away from his mind for so long.

He pushed down his instincts though, and put the CDs away before he had time to really think about things. It didn’t do well to dwell on shadows of the past.

***

They’d quickly fallen into a routine.

During the week, Yuri was always at school or doing homework, working to show up all of those who’d written him off, but they always made sure to have breakfast and dinner together.

They’d learned to move around each other with surprising ease, slotting next to eachother perfectly, whether they were working on breakfast on a week day, or working in the shop at weekend.

Sometimes, when they weren’t away on business, Yuuri and Viktor would join them, too, and even that, Yuri found, was surprisingly easy. They’d have dinner or watch movies together, and Viktor was too loud sometimes, and Yuuri was a bit too overbearing, but Yuri didn’t altogether hate it as much as he’d thought. They were disgustingly sappy, and more than once he’d had to throw a pillow at them to stop them from making out in the same room as him and Otabek, but something about them made them easy to be around.

It felt like a lifetime ago, but it hadn’t actually been long since he and Otabek first met.

It had been even less since Yuuri and Viktor had resolved to help him, gaining guardianship and giving him a home, a job and a life outside of the system. It felt like too much good fortune for him, like too much good in too little time, and sometimes he worried. But this? This was easy. This felt _right_.

He thought at times like this, people might tell him not to look a horse in the mouth for gifts, whatever the hell that meant.

***

It was three months after moving in that Yuri finally opened the final box.

Small trinkets, old drawings - all the things that held too much emotional implication, he’d locked away in this box, to pull out only when he felt ready to face the ghosts of his past.

But he didn’t think he’d ever really feel ready, so today was as good a time as any. It was a good day, and he might just be able to face some of those things.

Or, so he thought.

Right on top in the box were a few of his drawings as a child. Drawings of him, doing things he used to dream about that he’d never showed anyone and had hidden away under his mattress, because the other boys could never, ever know about any of them.

And that was fine. They were just the useless dreams of a child who’d hoped of better things, who’d hoped that parents would show up to adopt him and who would love him unconditionally. A child who’d dreamed that one day he’d be somewhere far away, happy and rich and successful.

Next was a small wooden box. If he opened it, he’d find a small figurine inside, and if he turned the key on the side of the box, it would sing a small tune that he’d used to listen to all the time as a child. But he didn’t do either of those things; instead, he put the box aside, on top of the drawings.

From underneath, he pulled out a piece of cloth. It was blue, and ripped in several places, kept lovingly clean by clumsy hands for years, and folded with attention and care. As he unfolded it, it revealed itself to be a one piece costume, easy to move and dance in, made of soft cloth, sleeveless and tight at the top, with baggy pants of a darker shade. One of the legs was nearly ripped off, and so was the part from the collar across the chest. Unusable, ruined for sure, but kept clean and safe at the back of a wardrobe by a child who’d been unable to throw it away.

The box was still halfway full five minutes later when Yuri put the costume back and closed it on top. Some day, perhaps he’d face whatever else was in there.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> >   
> __  
> They had a system, and the system worked.  
>  _“Ow! Shit, sorry.” Well, most of the time. When they weren’t hitting each other by swinging doors open, it did.  
> _  
> 
> 
> Or the one where moving in together means adjusting to a lot of changes and personal quirks, and things take time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ughhhh. I'm not very sure about this chapter, but whatever. It's nanowrimo which means whatever I write goes and I'll just. Come back and fix whatever later.

Yuuri and Viktor were gone with work a lot. They were probably out of the country more they were actually there, so for the most part, Yuri and Otabek were on their own in the building. Which was just fine by him. They had a system, and the system worked.

“Ow! Shit, sorry.” Well, most of the time. When they weren’t hitting each other by swinging doors open, it did. “Ow. Uhh… are you ok?”

“I’m fine, I’m fine. Ow, ow ow. It’s just a bump. Don’t worry.” Otabek’s nose was bleeding, but they had a first aid kit. You could fix a nose with one of those. Definitely.

So you see, the system worked.

***

During the first couple of weeks, things were… stilted. Definitely stilted. They were most definitely not tip-toeing around each other, though. They were just asking questions constantly to be considerate. Not because they suddenly weren’t sure how to act around each other.

And, okay. Maybe Otabek woke up much earlier than him, and most of the time the coffee had already gone cold, but that’s why Otabek had a microwave.

_“Good morning.” he’d say, after freezing for a second in the entrance to the kitchen, despite doing the same thing for a couple of weeks now._

_“... ‘Morning.”_

_A few seconds later, Yuri would finally walk in and grab the extra cup of coffee to microwave it. “Thanks,” he’d say. Otabek would nod._

_Eventually, Yuri would sit across from him with his coffee and sip at it at set intervals. Lately, he’s even been trying to make conversation._

It was fine. They just had to get the hang of things. Like locking doors, or knocking.

_“Oh.” Otabek slammed the door to the bathroom shut. “Uh, sorry. Sorry about that.”_

_“Knock on doors!”_

_“I forgot! I’m sorry! We have keys, though, you know!”_

***

Mornings were not Yuri’s favourite time of the day. To be fair, they probably weren’t anyone’s. He refused to believe that the day started before he drank at least one cup of coffee. So he appreciated the fact that when he walked into the kitchen, there was now always a mug next to the microwave that he could just pop in and then drink.

While that heated up, he turned around to the pantry to grab a bagel, just for the sake of ingesting something that was not caffeine.

“Aren’t you going to have breakfast?” He jumped away from the hand placed on his shoulder before he heard the words.

“Sorry, I… should I not do that?”

Yuri was actually moved by the genuine concern Otabek seemed to express.

“No, no that’s fine. Just make sure I can see you coming and it’s fine.”

Otabek didn’t look entirely convinced, but he seemed to move on for the moment. “So, my question?”

Yuri blinked a couple of times. “Oh! About breakfast?” he remembered. He frowned, then looked down at his bagel. “Uhh… This is breakfast?”

Otabek frowned even more. “You should try to eat better in the mornings. Breakfast’s important, you know.” he said, moving towards the fridge. Yuri was pretty sure his brain was moving to slowly to process this, so he made it a point to grab his now-hot coffee. “Eggs are fine, right?”

“Uh… sure, they’re ok.”

“Do you.... Know how to make breakfast food?” Otabek turned worried eyes on him, and Yuri felt himself blushing. That wasn’t exactly something that had been a concern before.

“I just usually grab whatever’s convenient…” he trailed off. Sometimes, not even that. Coffee and nothing else was a perfectly acceptable breakfast, too.

“Do you want to learn?”

Yuri considered that, and nodded. So Otabek pulled out the salt, and a bowl, and set to whisking the eggs - which, ok, how the fuck do you do that? - and he watched as he poured them in a pan. And yeah, that seemed simple enough. He could definitely get the hang of scrambled eggs.

The eggs sizzled for a couple of minutes in the pan when Otabek turned away from the pan for a few seconds to get two plates out. Yuri, who was left next to the eggs, flailed. Reached out for the pan. Pulled back. Reached out one hand. Turned towards Otabek and back. Stepped back. Best not to touch anything.

Thankfully, nothing was on fire when 5 seconds later, Otabek got back with the plates. Who would have thought?

“Here.”

“Oh, right. Thanks.” he stared at the plate he was handed.

They both sat down with their own plates and ate.

“These are really good.”

Otabek nodded.

Then, silence.

“By the way, do you think you’ve got a handle on running the shop?”

Yuri jumped, his focus broken from the eggs. He wasn’t sure where that was going, so he shrugged. “That depends, I guess? I still have no clue how you put in orders or handle invoices, if that’s what you mean. I can handle customers and watering the plants, though, I guess? Why?”

Otabek hesitated. “I, uh. I was wondering? Just if it’s ok, do you think you could handle the shop for a day? On your own?”

***

Two weeks later, they had papers stuck to all doors with the word ‘Knock!’ written in bold letters.

***

A short while after he started going back to school, he was regretting it.

“You might want to quote the original sources instead of the wikipedia article. Most teachers will be more willing to accept those. Look for the sources Wikipedia quotes at the bottom of the article.” Otabek told him as he set a cup of tea next to him. Yuri groaned.

“What is it with teachers and assigning essays at the same damn time? Seriously, we had like, none of these to write until last week.” he complained. He made a point to take Otabek’s advice, though.

“You keep complaining, but you already finished most of them.” Otabek said as he sat on the couch with his own tea.

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” he grumbled. It was true, though. Now that he actually bothered to show up, his grades had picked up almost immediately, and actually putting in a bit of effort meant that he was getting his work done in record time. He would almost admit that some of the stuff they were doing was kind of interesting. He had spent more time that strictly necessary on some of the projects he’d gotten done. Still, this was a matter of principle.

“Come on. When you finish with that, we can watch a bad movie together. I’ll even get takeout today, and you can complain about how bad the movie is for the rest of the evening, if you want.”

And that sounded like an offer that might persuade him. “Chinese?” he asked, letting hope bleed into his tone, and a chuckle was all the answer he needed.

“Sure. I’ll order chinese, if you just get that essay done.”

Yuri’s only answer was a cheer. He sipped at his tea, burned himself in his excitement, and twenty minutes later, the work he’d been agonizing over was done. He might have over-sold its difficulty, but he got chinese out of it, so he wasn’t going to apologise.

“Yes!” he cheered as he shut the top of the laptop. “Done! Now let’s get that movie started!”

And, ok. That knowing glint in Otabek’s eyes made him feel a bit like he’d just been played like a fiddle, but again. He was getting chinese, as well as an evening of complaining about bad movies out of the deal. He still counted that as his win.

He made quick work of pulling up the worst rom-com he could find on netflix, while Otabek went to the kitchen to put the take-out in bowls so they could pretend that they were functioning people, who weren’t taking the first excuse to get glorified instant meals.

“Here.” he said, handing Yuri his serving.

“Nice!” he said, grabbing the bowl. “Thanks! Oh, I wanted to ask, since it’s almost weekend. Do you need me to take over the shop on Saturday again?”

He sat at one end of the sofa, draping his legs over the length between him and Otabek, mimicking his friend. Otabek seemed to think for a second before answering “It’s usually pretty slow that day, so if you think you can handle it?”

Yuri waved a hand vaguely for his concerns. “Don’t worry. I think I got the hang of it lately.” Then, starting to take a bit and stopping halfway, he added “One of these days though, I’ll get you to take me to wherever you disappear to on weekends.”

“That’s not going to happen any time soon.”

That was a challenge if Yuri’s ever heard one. Of course if Otabek wanted to think he’d won this one, Yuri wouldn’t fight him on it. For now.

“Sure, Beka. I’m sure you know best.”

Otabek rolled his eyes. “Just play the movie. You’ll find out where I go on weekends when you’re older.”

***

“Yuri? You look like you’re kind of full,” Beka interrupted the movie a few minutes later. “You know, there’s no need to force yourself. If you can’t eat anymore, we can just put that in the fridge and eat the rest tomorrow.”

Yuri blinked at him, mouth still full. “We ca’ wha’ nohw?”

***

“Oh God. This is just like them. I can’t… how can I ever make fun of TV couples again?” Yuri asked himself an hour later, staring in horror at the TV. “Viktor and Katsuki are worse than any of them and there’s no way I can ever. Ever unsee those two.”

Otabek snorted in response. The only appropriate response, to be fair. He was right, after all.

“No movie romance is as over the top as them. Beka, don’t laugh! How am I ever supposed to complain about bad movies again?”

“You seem to be complaining fine.”

“It isn’t the same! Watching crappy movies and complaining about them is tradition! Therapeutic!”

“I’m sure you’ll manage.” he said, eyes fixed on the TV, now portraying the young couple sharing a passionate kiss against a sunset background, and he nearly cringed. The word ‘tacky’ came to mind. “Besides. If you want movie romance, you should ask them about how they met, someday.”


End file.
